For France:
[A] place with a passion for all things—vintage wine, aged cheese and enduring hypocrisy.
Case in point: Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s magnificent proposal that will allow French children to learn about the Holocaust in a way that could be called, “tres Ann Frank.” The young Dutch victim of Nazi inhumanity has demonstrated a perpetual draw for teenage girls and boys. All over the world, in scores of translations, young readers have absorbed the diary of this teenager, someone with whom they can identify, a regular young person just like the reader.
Unsurprisingly, the French are against this.
Well, we all know how the French love their Jews. They love them to be bound, gagged, and tortured, it seems.
Six accused of attacking, torturing Jewish teenager in France. March 5, 2008
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080305.wfrance0305/BNStory/International/home
Jews have no future in France. Nor anywhere else in Europe I would think.
The French should take a pill. Relax, mes amis. The Germans won’t be invading you anytime soon.
Not to worry. The French will abort themselves and refuse to procreate sufficiently that they will be out of existence very soon.
Life eeez sheeet, and we are joos chemicals, eh, anti-Christian politically immature frog?
France does not like to speak about WWII. It never happened.
72 millions people died in WW2. (direct and indirect deads). That’s a lot.
6 millions jews were exterminated. That we should remember, but we should also remember the 66 millions others who died. (99% of the deads were innocents)
Doug: life is indeed just a chemical reaction that is feeding on low entropy. Read some biology books. Atheism is the future of humanity. God is a delusion.
ASF above me here, is proof of why the Holocaust Will happen again.
Actually, the French eat younger cheeses than do North Americans. The sources I have read say that North American taste was shaped by the fact French cheese was exported and therefore arrived more ripe than typically consumed in France. It would be more appropriate to describe France as a land of flavourful cheese, as North American cheese in supermarkets typically tastes like wax.
If these euro-weenies were not such pussies, every child would tour one of the concentration camps.
I went through Bergen-Belsen, and it left a mark on me that will last until the day that I die!
BTW, it is nice to see that the french tradition of surrendering/cowardice/abdicating responsibility is alive and well.
Note to the UN……if you want to save lives, do not send French troops(with the exception being the Van Doos!)
I hope they also learn about the Fascist French Vichy government which rounded up and deported 10s of thousands of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals,Freemasons, Communists and French dissidents to Nazi Germany for liquidation.
They had an active eugenics program to cull society of “undesirables” and preserve “the French race” and were quite tight with both Mussolini and Hitler.
The Vichy government was also the toast of International anglo Progressives like H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw Margret Sanger Emily Murphy and Aldous Huxley.
Will they learn THAT in France??
An interesting article from the Washington Post on the Democrats wanting America to be liked in the world: The Myth of America’s Unpopularity.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/americas_popularity_not_all_th.html
It contains this great comment about France:
” But President Charles de Gaulle remained more interested in the cultivation of French self-esteem than in trans-Atlantic unity. Having withdrawn the French Mediterranean fleet from NATO in 1959, he later ordered the removal of NATO troops from French soil. President Lyndon Johnson (in one of his finest hours) instructed his secretary of state to ask de Gaulle: “Does your order include the bodies of American soldiers in France’s cemeteries?”.”
winston churchill on charles de Gaulle
‘everyone has their cross to bear…MINE is the croix de Lorraine.”
“Unsurprisingly, the French are against this. ”
And the unspoken last sentence? “Because they are teh anti semites!” You don’t get the hang of this free speech thing. At all. Fake claims of anti semitism contravene every moral code that man has conceived of.
I’ve never seen a lasting, widely adhered to moral code that says “thou shall not discriminate”, but every code contains a provision against bearing false witness.
Making a false claim of anti-semitism is no different in kind than lying, cheating, or stealing in any form. It is a reliable indicator of defective character.
I’ve got news for you anti-Christian child, there is no future for your kind. Like I said, as long as you keep aborting yourselves and not procreating, ISLAM will rule France in a few generations.
Nothing to say about this? Didn’t think so. It’s because you are incapable of seeing clearly anything that has happened before your puny little life and having the vision to picture things past it.
I would think that it is obvious that the french have spoken with their actions over the years.
Shipping children off to nazi concentration camps would be just one example.
How these actions could be construed as “bearing false witness” is beyond me.
Geeeeeeeez!
How mentioning these actions………
Just a little more proof that France will not be around much longer.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/07/wfrance107.xml
Choice quotes:
“One of the more surprising findings was that one-in-five French men aged between 18 and 24 “manifests no interest in sexuality”, while abstinence rates for men under 35 was twice as high as for women.”
“Ms Bruni recently declared monogamy “terribly boring” and spoke in relaxed fashion about her numerous past conquests…’I am faithful… to myself.’ ”
“How these actions could be construed as “bearing false witness” is beyond me.”
Lots of things are beyond me; what I do is shut my cakehole and listen to people who know what they are talking about.
When a gearhead tells me the new Ferrari XYZ has a great engine I don’t backtalk him, I listen to him. I don’t pretend that my Ferrari knowledge is equal to a guy who is passionate and devoted to Ferraris. I don’t feel “entitled” to the same level of respect on the matter of Ferrraris as the gearhead, that is illogical.
Accordingly, people who haven’t done their homework on matters of history and anthropology, and like to smear those of us who have, need to shut the hell up.
The French just freely elected a Hungarian Jew as President of the Republic. This is antisemitism? Has Canada ever elected a Jewish PM? There is only one Jewish premier I am aware of, Bob Rae, and he was elected as an Anglican. The list of nations with a Jewish head of state or PM is pretty short, therefore claims that France is antisemetic need to be scrutinized closely.
Ad in a Paris Newspaper:
For sale: One rifle, brand new, only dropped once.
In a few months French troops may be fighting side by side with Canadians in Afstan (or freeing up U.S. troops to do the same).
Also, one doesn’t need to look as far as France to see vicious anti-Semitism. The entire Federal NDP, and a significant chunk of the Liberal Party of Canada is infested with anti-semites.
No country should be above criticism, including France. But the present matters too.
Bought-and paid for. (The only question is: Who bought-and how much did they pay?)
Kate,how is it that you (correctly) refuse to accept responsibility for history of European and North American slave owning and trading, but you appear to endorse the notion that the French of today must do eternal penance for the sins of those now either long dead or old and feeble and mostly beyond hope of influencing events? If someone presented this institutional guilt-tripping “education” plan to me and asked me whether I wanted my son to relive the horrible last days of an innocent child in a hellish time long past, I’d tell them to go pound sand. I can teach my child right from wrong without assistance from the bumbling education “system”, thanks.
It isn’t ALL the French who are opposed; it is SOME. And I think it is understandable; all societies live within their myths.
The French don’t like to think about surrendering to the Germans in 7 days, to setting up the Vichy government, to their collaboration in mass deportations and so on. They prefer the memories of Napoleon and the Revolution. So, they don’t want ANY memories of themselves in WWII.
After all, we Canadians have our own myths. About our superior health care system, our nature as ‘global peacekeepers’, as ‘tolerant and calm’.
We reject the facts – that our health care system is a mess.
And ‘keeping the peace’ often requires military acts to set up that peace and we have no right to leave that military act to ‘the Rambo Americans’.
And we’ve never been put in situations where we have to defend ourselves or fight for our economy. So, we can always be ‘tolerant and calm’, especially since we always blame the Americans for any problems.
For example – Gun crimes in Canada? We blame the Americans who sell the guns, not the Canadians who purchase and use the guns!
Sarkozy’s idea is excellent, but, myths are hard for societies to dispense with.
Occam, the answer is that the French (The Left, most of France) still clings to the principles. It’s a warning to the rest if us that if we allow our nation to slide in the same direction as France, we will not be able to climb back up.
Does that answer your question?
When Germany invaded France, the French army was much larger and had more tanks and artillary than did the Germans (historical fact). The only ingredient missing was courage. Even to this day the French still build tanks equipped with backup lights.
This “shielding the children’s innocence” business comes up at the most convenient times, doesn’t it?
Nobody ever mentions it when the issue is violent TV shows, too much skin on billboards, nude beaches, street walkers, people who dress their kids like street walkers. “Hey, sex is natural, don’t be such a prude, dude!”
But expose kids to the fact that their grandfathers sent a whole bunch of little kids to the Nazi death camps? No, we can’t have that.
Ross, some historians assert that after WWI France was a completely defeated nation with no will to defend herself. After WWII all that were left were collaborators and traitors, the valiant died in battle.
And what’s left? (get it? “LEFT”) are beings like our anti-Christian frog who cling childishly to the notion that his puny ideas are the salvation of mankind, unable to comprehend that through the sheer force of numbers, his beliefs will crumble under the boot of Islam.
I’m compelled by fairness to add that absent the Nazi invasion I doubt the French would have done anything terrible to the little Jewish kids. And the French Resistance were a pretty serious bunch, so that was good.
Maybe its just the French government that sucks. Kinda like Canada under the Liberals.
Good on France! It’s about time western nations woke their youth up about their freedoms they take so much for granted. Possibly they won’t be so laissez-faire about giving it away to the tolalitarians that have invaded their country recently in the name of Islam!
At least they will have the opportunity to understand fully what the friendly religion of peace now in thier midst has in mind for them besides burning a few cars and gang raping the odd french woman passing by. It really can get much worse.
Japanese children could use a heavy dose of uncensored reality on their side of the pond also. As could ours (“lest we forget”)!
Hey, Occam…the slave trade was a Islamic thing …ending the slave trade was a western liberal democrat thingie…just though you should know.
….. I wonder if the French “youths” you know the Algerian ones burning the French cities down have to take the mandatory Auschwitz reality check? Maybe the whole exercise is really intended for them? Wonder what the local peace loving Imam will have to say about it? They claim the holocaust never happened, what a bummer if French law for once doesn’t exempt them with the special entitlement privileges they are so accustomed to and forces the “youths” to attend, I see France glowing like a roman candle…………………
ET,
I had some hope for your comments when you said:
“It isn’t ALL the French who are opposed; it is SOME.” You were briefly able to distinguish between sweeping generalizations and specifics, but then immediately went on to say:
“The French don’t like to think about surrendering to the Germans in 7 days.” Really? Does that weigh heavily on the minds of “the French” today?
Doug,
Allow our nation to slide in the same direction as France? You should become a policy adviser for the backward French. I’m sure you’d have a lot to offer a nation that has existed, in some capacity, for millennia.
Phantom,
Wandering child, so lost, so helpless, yearning for guidance. Are nude beaches and familial histories related to Nazi death camps really as similar as you suggest?
Read fully about the Sarko plan and reaction. You’ll notice that most criticism focused on the fact that his ‘holocaust mentor’ plan avoids Vichy.
Giving a generation the impression that it was only foreigners who shipped innocents “just like them” to the ovens, when you could argue the collaborators were at least as responsible, might certainly be worse than not having then learn individual histories like Anne Frank’s.
What a lot of sanctimonious dribble. You honestly think the Jews would have fared any better in England and Canada in 1939 on the heels of an invasion by the dreaded Huns? You’re dreamers if you think so.
Also, what is the extent of your study of WWI events that equips you to speak with any knowledge concerning the opposition of the French against the invading German forces? It was fierce and resulted in the deaths of about 1.5 millions, over 4 million wounded (about 1.5 million permanently maimed) and over half a million PoW or missing. That has been estimated at 73% of the total mobilized.
Besides the military, out of a civilian population of about 40 million, six in ten men between 18-18 died or were permanently maimed. We can’t imagine it, nor can we understand the long-term effect.
Re Jews being turned in. It happened in Poland also. This will offend anyone raised in the R.C. church, but years of being taught by the clergy that the Jews killed Christ wouldn’t prepare you to become their protectors under such circumstances. And that goes for most Protestant denominations in Britain and Canada in the 1930s if you want to be totally honest.
Some also want to believe that the French don’t remember WWII. Nonsense. A brief tour of Normandy would soon put that to rest.
They are French, for heaven’s sake, just as I carry all the little signs of arrogance and superiority of my English heritage.
If you have a legitimate dislike of the French, fine. But don’t get caught up in perpetuating fairy tales.
“Hey, Occam…the slave trade was a Islamic thing …ending the slave trade was a western liberal democrat thingie…just though you should know.”
Thanks for the update, WLM. I will revise my false notions about the basis of the cotton economy of the South. I will also stop referring to all those Africans who came over to N.A. on opulent cruise vessels as “cargo”. Clearly they were wealthy, carefree tourists, enjoying their luxurious cubic metre of space to the utmost.
Occam’s Carbuncle>
Exactly! Most of them do fare a hell of allot better in the US than if they had stayed as slaves in Africa! Ask 50 cent! They should be kissing the feet of the American founders for the opportunities they would never have had if they had remained the slaves of Islam or local African warlords. Al Sharpton and company need to check their Rolex watches and set aside some time for history lessons instead of lobbying for further entitlements.
I don’t quite know what to say to that. I think I’ll go wash my eyes.
You really think it’s admirable to be a carbuncle?
While not going as far as Knight99 who implied the slaves were on vacation, it is true that, many generations later, the descendants of slaves are much better off in the US than the descendants of those who were left behind.
For proof of this, there are many, many black Africans who have immigrated to the US over the last few generations and not many that have gone the other way.
I think this may have been the point that Knight was attempting to make.
And let’s kill another myth while we are at it:
The French economy is more productive than the American economy. On a per-hour basis the French worker produces slightly more value than an American worker. Source: Captian Capitalism, the OECD, The Economist, and a few thousand others.
That’s France, in 2008: a more productive economy than America.
You have a link for that?
Warwick: I’m impressed that you didn’t call me a “frog”, which is what you repeatedly call French people on your blog and this blog.
In this context, don’t ever backtalk or question me again you little punk.
Don’t address me, don’t even refer to me. You are the very definition of an internet troll, as evidenced by Googling your name.
The onus is on you to be non-ignorant, not on me to provide links to information that an educated person should know by rote. Your idiocy and absolute ignorance of economics is your problem, not mine.
I don’t ever want to see backtalk from television watchers again. Don’t do it. You WILL accept what I and your superiors tell you.
Re: slavery check out William Wilberforce for those who know their history. He led the charge on abolishing slavery in the British Parliament. At the outset he was routinely derided, ignored and held out as a pariah. Why? Because he offended the slave traders wallets.
A pretty good film about Wilberforce was recently in the theaters.
Yep, just a little too Anne Frank.
The National Socialists justification for excoriating the Jews was in the mileau of crushing inflation due to WWI reparations and a broken imperialist economy. The broken democracy of the Weimar Republic with its pitched street battles and political murders were the ideal recipe for the likes of Hitler. If it wasn’t Adolf some other goon would have taken the reigns. My grandfather was among the Lancers that was putting down the navy mutineers in the city of Kiel in 1919.
If history was taught without glossing over complicity on all sides; people would have a greater appreciation of how easily so called ‘civilization’ just slips away. Further, Adolf and company didn’t get to power without being aided and abetted by some heavy duty industrialists on all sides of the Atlantic.
Even Preston Bush was cited for “Trading with the Enemy Act” in 1942. The Silesian Coal Company used slave labor in Auschwitz which was held through Brown Brothers Harriman according to public records. Investments in Nazi Germany were routine knowledge of the period leading up to and including WWII. Of course it is impolite to talk about it now.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100474,00.html
One of the main ingredients is a simple INDIFFERENCE to the plight of others.
It is a little tougher to ‘stand in the wind’ when it is not politically popular, whether the tyranny is slavery, National Socialism, Communism, radical Islamism, or corrupt democrats.
It all depends on how little one respects the lives of others. At the root of it all, its just about power and money, who’s got it and who doesn’t. Of course it is always the few who ‘stand in the wind’ it is not the many.
One of the reasons I don’t accept the politicians who promise the ‘heaven on earth’ perfectibility of man. History has shown this to be an exceedingly bad bet.
Cheers
Warwick>
“I think this may have been the point that Knight was attempting to make”
Close to the point anyway. The major point is that black America and white apologists for the American slave trade can save their pointless guilt trips. Slavery was and has always been a reality of the African continent, with the largest perpetrators being the Africans themselves along with Islam. It still goes on today if anyone cares for that inconvenient truth.
A certain segment of early American society mainly based in the south, capitalized on this readily available resource of their time and were eventually removed from that position of power by the larger “white” society. What’s to apologize for? Suck it up black America; your enemies were 200 years ago and 4000 miles away.
When pointing fingers and searching for someone to hate and blame for your own feelings of worthlessness start with the first person you see in the morning when you brush your teeth.
fsafsaf
? “don’t ever backtalk or question me again you little punk.”
Are you for real or do you suffer some delusional ailment?
You made a claim, it’s up to you to back it up.
And I’ll call you worse than a frog you petulant little child.
Warwick, he and his anti-Christian twin are beyond self-parody. They are material for Rick Mercer and the SNL crowd. I’d laugh but they are just objects of pity.
[quote]If someone presented this institutional guilt-tripping “education” plan to me and asked me whether I wanted my son to relive the horrible last days of an innocent child in a hellish time long past, I’d tell them to go pound sand. I can teach my child right from wrong without assistance from the bumbling education “system”, thanks.[/quote]
Occam’s Carbuncle,
I agree with your premise, “Guilt Mongers” don’t impress me One bit. The CBC radio production scheme/theme is a perfect example. The Truth should not be hidden but aggressive exaggeration can & may boomerang!
RE: Slave trading. I have ancestors that immigrated to New England “Cape Cod” in ~1630. They were Quakers with connections to Slave trading in the English Plantation Island of “Barbados”. Barbados was a Staging area for slavers. The Plymouth Colony had Slaves that most historians ignore because it conflicts with popular belief. We as a Society have condemned those “Past” practices, what role would reliving those events have on today’s children.
fsaf – I don’t think that a ‘per hour’ basis is the correct criterion to use in assessing the economic strength of a nation.
As you know, a key problem with the French economy is the domination of the unions within the economy, the high cost of these unions with the employer’s inability to fire incompetent workers, the low number of work hours. This means that a higher proportion of Americans are in the work force than in France; they work more hours than in France.
I don’t think that using only ONE variable, production by work hour, is indicative of a nation’s economic viability. Even if you have one thousand sources for your data.
Phillip G. Shaw >
“What role would reliving those events have on today’s children?”
I would answer that by saying the role would serve to educate them in histories mistakes as well as the rewards. This is what will allow them to mature as a species.
On the other hand others use it for their own self-gain, demanding special rights and privileges in our societies to enrich themselves with both money and power.
We need to distinguish clearly the dual rolls of revisiting history with all its warts or lessons to children and allow them the opportunity and freedom to grow informed as well as leery.
There are ONLY tow kinds of people in this world..
One group works to improve life….
The other are busy f*cking it up for everyone.
Whether actively or passively these people in the second group …. NEVER give a crap about the consequences.
They are almost exclusively part of some Utopian cult …. that includes religious zealots, atheist zealots, socialists and most Lib / Left tools…..
“fsaf – I don’t think that a ‘per hour’ basis is the correct criterion to use in assessing the economic strength of a nation.”
That’s because you are a hideously dishonest unionized acadamic with zero credibility or training in economic matters, and have a financial interest in perpetuating the myths of your generation so we don’t cut off your pension.
You’re just not very honest, or bright, or talented, or credible, or educated in economics, to put it bluntly.
In light of this, you should be thankful that an individual with a demonstrated – right in this thread – record of superior knowledge on the matter at hand has shared his analysis with a, frankly, ignorant individual such as yourself.
You of all people should know that a country which elects a Hungarian Jew as President cannot reasonably be described as anti-semetic. Since you stayed silent while others made this false claim, your dishonesty is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. You know better, and you stayed silent, until I spoke up.